Hey, everybody! It's P-Day!!!!!!! I'm wearing
shorts and a t-shirt! If anyone asks how I'm doing, don't say "He's loving
it." That's cliché and this isn't McDonald's. Tell them that I love it
like a logger loves flapjacks. Mymymymymy. It's a beautiful day down here
in the Dominican Republic. Let me start by saying this- as someone who has
never flown before, flying is at once exhilarating and terrifying. Takeoff and
landing is so much fun. But I had a couple of embarrassing moments. Like when I
fell asleep soon after taking off out of Dallas and woke halfway up
an hour later with my face pressed against the window looking out over a vast
field of clouds. I'm scared of heights. And like a champ, I screamed like a
little girl. And woke myself up the rest of the way. And the rest of the
plane. I was only half-awake, okay? Give me a break! Oh, and then the moment
when we were flying over the Gulf of Mexico and I was looking down at the ocean
and as I scanned the water below, I noticed an odd-looking island at the rear
of my sightline. I sat there for a minute and a half trying to figure out what
it was, before I realized- it was the tail fin of the plane. Oops. Also, it's
not really important, but the Miami airport had more announcements in Spanish
than in English, and also, ninety percent of the roofs in the city of Miami are
red. And! Kommandant. My traveling companion's name was Elder Schyler
Richardson, and it is indeed pronounced like Skyler.
When we finally arrived in Santo Domingo, it was
about 7-8 o'clock-ish. I lost my baggage claim tickets, but luckily, laws are a
little loose in the Dominican Republic, so I was able to just take my bags
anyway. I also forgot where the keys to open the locks on my bags were, but
luckily, TSA, unbeknownest to me, decided to physically search my
bags in Dallas, so they were kind enough to break the locks for me. They also
left a very polite apology for invading my privacy and destroying my things.
Although the Santo Domingo airport looks very small, it didn't feel small. They
even had a Denny's. No one spoke English, but hey, evidently wearing confused
looks and repeatedly saying, "What? What?" over and over is good
enough to get through Dominican customs and immigration. Once we got all of our
luggage and people through airport security, it was out into the night. Holy
moly. If you swing your arms too fast, you'll start swimming. The humidity is
unbelievable. Also, you should pray that they don't assign me a mission
vehicle. Traffic in Santo Domingo is unlike anything I have ever experienced.
If there are laws, people either don't know them or don't care about them. We
drove through one of the poorer parts of the city, and it was unbelievable how
sad it was to see. I saw kids running through gutted out buildings
and clumps of assault-rifle-toting soldiers all over. Four-wheeler gangs are
also a thing here. But we managed to get to the MTC unscathed.
The MTC itself is an up and down experience. One
elder said it best. In his words, the first week at the MTC is like drinking
out of a fire hydrant. You get some water, but it mostly just hurts your
face. It's a different world. Breakfast every morning is fruit, mush, and cold
cereal. They call frosted flakes Azucaritas here. Lunch is always beans, two
kinds of rice, and two kinds of meat, one or both of which is always chicken.
Dinner does mix it up, although it still consists mainly of ethnic
dishes. But when we broke our fast on Sunday, we had pizza. Never in my
life have I felt more patriotic than I did while consuming that pure
manifestation of Americanism. The second day, we were divided into
companionships and districts. No one knew anyone's first name until the fifth
day. My companion is Elder Taylor, an Idahoan so through and through that he
seriously brought a bag of potatoes with him. In the district, we have three
hermanas, Hermanas Greenstreet, Jensen, and Nazaire. Hermana Nazaire is a
Haitian who immigrated to the Bahamas a few years ago and likes to dance.
Hermana Jensen is a short sister from southern Utah who sings like an angel and
laughs like a drunk. Hermana Greenstreet is a very straight-laced lass from
Washington. The other elders are Elders Blount, Zamora, Durrant, and
Kitchen. Elder Blount, our district leader, is a tall black gospel
singer from Atlanta who is not related to LeGarrette. Elder Zamora, his
companion, is one of two identical twins from Texas who are here in the
MTC. One is going to the East mission, one to the West. Durrant is from Heber
City in Utah. He's athletic and has little reverence for much, but can be
surprisingly spiritual. Elder Kitchen is his companion, and it's a match that
probably wouldn't happen anywhere outside the MTC. Kitchen is a gangl
Being 19, I'm actually one of the oldest
missionaries here. Of the fifty or so that are here, I think six are older than
18. It blew my mind to see just how many of them have honestly never done a
load of laundry in their lives. It's sometimes frustrating because most of them
have clearly never lived with anyone away from home before and the urge to snap
and go rampaging through the building is sometimes hard to resist. They're good
guys though, and they're on the Lord's errand. We have a lot of fun.
The biggest struggle here is learning the
language. I think if I were speaking English, everything would be a breeze.
However, the teachers never say a word of English- most don't speak it anyway.
All the signs are in Spanish. Even the MTC is called La CCM here. Now, it's a
very good idea for in terms of teaching the language to have a totally
immersive experience from day one. However, the fact that every single thing is
in Spanish is often frustrating, on account of the little snag that I
don't speak Spanish. I hate the feeling when a teacher is asking me to do
something very simple and I can't because I don't have any clue what he's
saying. But at the same time, I'm learning a lot, and although I'm a dauntingly
long way from fluency, I'm starting to understand the teachers for the most
part which is in and of itself a miracle.
You know, whenever I heard stories about elders
coming home early, I always kind of scoffed and thought that it couldn't have
been that hard, that they just weren't mentally tough enough Well, now that I'm
here, I have an acute understanding of why. We've had one elder go home
already, and it's only the first week. Time is weird. Every day feels like a
week, and every week feels like a day. There have been a couple of moments when
I've wondered if I can handle the stress or not. But every time I've felt that
way, something has happened to make it bearable. The Spirit is everywhere here.
I've never been so consistently and powerfully touched by it in all my life.
And on that note, I've realized that I've been kind of bad at bearing my
testimony and letting people know how I feel about the gospel. So just to clear
the air: I know that the church is true as certainly as I've known anything in
my entire life. I know that Joseph Smith did see the Savior and the Lord in the
Sacred Grove and the gospel was restored to the earth through them. I know that
the Lord loves us all and wants us to be able to return to him despite our
countless flaws and mistakes. And the more I think and pray about it, the more
I realize this to be true- When the gospel works in your life and you see the
blessings that come from being obedient in all things, you realize that you
don't want anyone to have to live without it.
Sorry for such a long email. The first week has
a lot to cover. They'll be less time consuming to read in the future! Hey! Tell
me how things are going back in the states. Let me know how you are. I love you
all and God bless you, everyone!
Yours,
Dallin
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